If I recall NB had a long history of NOT paying athletes to endorse them. Guess this is a change of philosophy for them.

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Founders set their rule (not endorse athletes) but seems like the person from Nike changes the rule and start to endorse people.
Since they are private company no one knows they will benefit from it or not but seems like their revenues went up. Probably at the same time, they might pay more to endorsed players. Actually I like the idea (not endorse athletics) especially they are somewhat well known company.

NB makes about 20-25% of the shoes in the USA currently......European supply mainly comes from the UK plant they have. China and Veitnam the main supply points overall - Current CEO came from Gillette and it seems to have a more aggressive position on sponsorship.

NB only makes the older models (the greyish motion-controlled running/walking shoes and a few others) in the US. Used to sell them and the rep told me it's because it's a lot cheaper to modernize equipment and train/retrain workers abroad than in the US. The newer shoes are a lot more complex and are harder to make. Most of the machinery in the US factories are post WWII vintage and can't make the newer stuff

I wear NB gear on the court (shorts, a few shirts). Good stuff. As for the court shoes, they don't look very sturdy or durable. I tend to bust through the sides of shoes in the toebox before I wear through the sole.

Nike and adidas have most of the youth but their shoes are not the best. Fed has his modified and wears shoes totally different then the ones for sale. What does that tell you. Nike and adidas are good shoes but NB are far more comfortable. The best marketed is not always the best product. I started wearing NB last year for the first time for tennis and am very very impressed.

I've never had good luck with the NB shoes. They seemed to break down rather fast on the inside area. I got foot pain with them when they broke down. This usually happened within 6 weeks to two months of buying them. I only play probably two times a week. Not a good life span IMO.